Archive for November, 2007
by Jevon MacDonald
November 29, 2007 at 8:33 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
In 1534 a group of men, some disillusioned soldiers, some students, all a mishmash of Spaniards, Portuguese and French gathered outside paris to form an order. The Company of Jesus was a commitment to each-other and to their cause.
to “enter upon hospital and missionary work in Jerusalem, or to go without questioning wherever the pope might direct”
You don’t have to be Christian, Catholic or even religious to have some respect for that kind of commitment. A vow of poverty and a future of unknowns. These men were a special type of person, who would stay committed to their cause through untold hardship. Upon forming, the Jesuit Priests split up and set out to complete the tasks given to each member by the pope. There are two parts of the story about this order that are relevant to the introduction of social computing in to an organization today. The first is the story of the constitution of the order.
The founder of the order, Ignatius of Loyola, was tasked with creating a constitution and set of rules for the brotherhood. I am sure that having to live within the Catholic Church, easily the largest enterprise of the day, did not make this easy. His approach, and one we should replicate, was methodical and took place over a period of six years. Ignatius of Loyola did not draw up arbitrary rules as I can only imagine would have been common in the church, instead he introduced rules or customs and tested them out, getting rid of ones that didn’t work and keeping the ones which helped move the order forward. Instead of pretending he had the answers, which as leader would have been typical, he chose to do what was sensible.
The second lesson, or perhaps warning, is how hard the work of the Jesuit Priest was at this time. The thankless journey in to unknown populations to spread a gospel that most people didn’t understand or particularly want. This is the role of the Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist in a large organization today. Behind you, you have the enterprise, playing the role of the church, and in front you have a hostile population.What can the Priests and Priestesses of Enterprise 2.0 do to be successful? How can a mid-level employee bring social computing in to their organization? Is it hopeless? Are the Jesuit Priests of Enterprise 2.0 bound to a life of pain and rejection?
Take a page from the Jesuits. You have to go in to unknown cultures, unknown places with unknown risks and you have to put it all on the line. You must live the faith in the most stubborn way possible and only then will your message be seen and heard. Above all else, the Jesuits aimed to live their faith and be examples rather than simply act as preachers. The impact of this was profound.
Few societies have entrenched themselves so successfully across the globe as the Jesuits, they have been resilient to change and catastrophe over the years and they have, arguably, been successful in achieving many of their original goals. Leave your views of religious orders at the door, I know I had to, and take a look at the story of a small group of revolutionaries who created one of the most distributed, organic and innovative organizations that the world has ever seen.
by Rob Paterson
November 29, 2007 at 7:44 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Business Model, Culture, Economics, Enterprise 2.0, Facebook, Messy World, Nato, Public Media, Secretary Gates, Social Computing, Social Media, Taliban, Terror, User Revolution, Videos, War, Web 2.0, Wisdom of Crowds
Secretary Gates made this statement in a recent speech:
It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, “How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?” Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications (My post at Fast Forward yesterday)
I am starting to see something here. War has been the agency that accelerates the development of key new technology.
In the 1860’s the civil war put the train on the map. Post the war, an enormous track laying boom exploded around the world. The military made the train the backbone of the industrial approach to war.The same with flight. In Europe, the military saw the potential of flight immediately. But the US did not – that is why Rickenbaker flew a Spad.
The Wright Company in particular and American airplane companies in general continue to lose their technological edge to the Europeans. This is due in part to the U.S. Government’s failure to support the fledgling airplane industry. While the governments of England, France, and Germany are buying hundreds of airplanes for their armed forces and supporting aviation research, the United States is spending roughly the same amount of money as Bulgaria. (First to Fly)
By 1918, the future of flight was assured. There were no doubters – and like the adoption of the train, this new way of connecting people has transformed our world.
So back to social software. As impressive as Facebook is, as impressive the growth of blogging – this is all personal. Organizational life and how we all live has not been changed yet. There is immense resistance in the key institutions of our time to its introduction. Leaders in business, education, healthcare etc all fear the outcome of adoption.
The big money is all based in an advertising model. If you can form a large group, you get rewarded. But the true potential of the tool set is not being invested in.
The true potential of social software is that it allows many to many to meet in real time at low to no cost. This means that you can see what is really going on – the business intelligence aspects are immense and transform research as it is conducted today. It enables you to get your message out in a real time and precise way – will transform marketing. Most of all it enables people to have very different relationships. Large, central capital based organizations are no longer needed. So everything that we do now such as how we educate, provide healthcare, provide services will be radically transformed.
Our large institutions can no longer do anything properly. The military is no exception. It is too big, too slow, too ponderous, too expensive. It cannot deal with war as it is waged today. The military are themselves full of resistance to the kind of change that social software implies.
BUT, people in the military who are losing the war of public opinion – who know now that Human Terrain is the new battlefield – are weighing the idea of loss of control with losing the war. My bet is that they will seek to win the war. This is what Gates is starting to say.
The greatest irony is that their enemy is showing them how to do this. Here is a CNN report on why NATO is now getting behind a Social Software approach to war. (Posted yesterday- sorry about the repeat but this makes sense)
CNN interviews a NATO Official in Afghanistan who echoes the Secretary and insists that we better get good at this or risk losing the real war – which is all political.
The strategy aims to counter years of propaganda video posted on the Internet showing Taliban attacks on NATO forces which fighters use to claim that NATO’s position in the Afghan war is deteriorating.
“The Taliban, who are literally cave-dwellers, are doing better than we are on a key battleground — and that’s video,” said NATO spokesman James Appathurai. “They deploy with videographers. We don’t. They have DVDs out in an hour, we don’t.”
Wielding video cameras like weapons, fighters quickly upload images of their attacks and create a valuable morale booster for their supporters.
Now, after much internal debate, NATO has begun declassifying and posting top secret combat video on YouTube and other Web platforms to try and beat the Taliban at its own game.
“We’re, in a sense, winning the tactical battles, but we’re not focusing enough on the strategic battle, which is public opinion,” said Appathurai.
The link to the excellent report and video is here.
In 1918, America could see for itself the power of flight. The nation adopted it like no other.
So here is my prediction. The first institution that will really invest in developing Social Software to radically improve how it delivers will be parts of the military. As with the train in the civil war and WWI, as with flight in WWI and WWII, how we deploy, how we fight and what victory is will be redefined.
The greatest irony will be is that the lesson for this change will have been taught by Al Qaeda.
This will not be an all or nothing adoption. Even in the 1920. and 1930’s Billy Mitchell fought an uphill battle with his superiors about the value of aviation. But the wedge was in.
The first flight was in 1903. By 1945, aviation was the new dominant military power. By 1975 aviation had captured the civilian world.
I think that history will look back at Facebook and smile.
Well done Mark – but look at what this technology really did!
by Rob Paterson
November 28, 2007 at 4:43 pm · Filed under
Al Qaeda, CNN, Conflict, Enterprise 2.0, Nato, Secretary Gates, Taliban, War
Secretary Gates made this statement in a recent speech:
It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, “How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?” Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications.
Only days later, CNN interviews a NATO Official in Afghanistan who echoes the Secretary and insists that we better get good at this or risk losing the real war – which is all political.
The strategy aims to counter years of propaganda video posted on the Internet showing Taliban attacks on NATO forces which fighters use to claim that NATO’s position in the Afghan war is deteriorating.
“The Taliban, who are literally cave-dwellers, are doing better than we are on a key battleground — and that’s video,” said NATO spokesman James Appathurai. “They deploy with videographers. We don’t. They have DVDs out in an hour, we don’t.”
Wielding video cameras like weapons, fighters quickly upload images of their attacks and create a valuable morale booster for their supporters.
Now, after much internal debate, NATO has begun declassifying and posting top secret combat video on YouTube and other Web platforms to try and beat the Taliban at its own game.
“We’re, in a sense, winning the tactical battles, but we’re not focusing enough on the strategic battle, which is public opinion,” said Appathurai.
The link to the excellent report and video is here.
NATO made several video excerpts available to CNN. One excerpt shows an armed Taliban fighter disguised as a woman in a full burqa, taking refuge with women and children to avoid being targeted by NATO.
One disturbing NATO video begins with a birds-eye view of a home in southern Afghanistan where NATO said a high-level Taliban meeting was taking place. Before NATO helicopters took aim at the house, a small boy is posted at the door as a human shield, forcing the NATO chopper pilot to hold fire.
Information is a crucial tool in any war, but is especially important in Afghanistan where the Taliban’s deeds, words and images have portrayed a deteriorating security landscape, with NATO soldiers on the run.
NATO officials argue that this is far from the truth and the country has experienced significant development and growth with constant attention being paid to security problems.
Appathurai said there are hundreds of military combat videos that show the true extent of Taliban engagement and the brutality of their tactics.
He admitted that in the past he had a hard time convincing NATO allies to declassify this sensitive, secret video for wide release. He said on occasion, that will now change.
NATO said the Taliban videos slowly erode the world’s perception of how the Afghanistan mission is progressing. But the Taliban’s media savvy means much more, said one expert.
Videos such as those produced by the Taliban are the lifeblood of terrorist recruiting campaigns, said Glen Jenvey, a UK-based Internet specialist who tracks trends in extremist and jihad content on the Web.
“At one point somebody has actually brainwashed these people to become terrorists, and this is where the recruiting sergeants actually take hold and the online part is an important part of it,” Jenvey said.
This reminds of the the history of the airplane. The first flight was only a few years before WWI. War propelled the technology. With no war, imagine all the people who would have dismissed it. I am getting a feeling that war will propell social media the same way. Real needs to know and to understand and to inform will drive the resources. Business will I think follow.
by Bill Ives
November 28, 2007 at 8:42 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
A few weeks ago I wrote a post, It is Time for Facebook Fridays: A Idea that Should Spread, that briefly mentioned Serena Software’s policy of allowing employees one hour of personal time during the workweek to spend on their Facebook profiles and connect with co-workers, customers, family and friends. Last week I spoke with René Bonvanie, the SVP of worldwide marketing, partner programs and online services at Serana, to learn more about the program and I discovered there is much more to learn.
In my first post I referred to an article on their policy which I felt was somewhat mis-titled, Serena Software Adopts Facebook as Corporate Intranet, and said that they are not really going that far. Well, I was wrong. Serena is really replacing its existing intranet with Facebook as a front end linked to a low-cost content management system behind the firewall. Here are the reasons why and what they have seen so far. When I heard the story, it makes sense to me, and falls under the categories of “why not?” and walking the web 2.0 talk.
René explained that the firm is just over 800 employees but is still globally based (operations in 18 countries) with 35% of their employees working virtually. They are going through a major transition as they move from more traditional enterprise applications to web 2.0 mashups. The leadership wanted all employees to be better connected so they could be on the same level of understanding, excitement, and commitment to this transition. They also thought that using a web 2.0 tool, like Facebook, represented the best way to take the whole company into this new space.
Like many companies their existing intranet was a poor platform for document finding, much less sharing. As an aside when I speak on web 2.0, I often ask anyone in the audience who can more easily find stuff on their company intranet than the web to raise their hand. This is a question I learned form Andrew McAfee. He reported that no one has raised their hand to this question and I have found the same results. I have also seen many unsuccessful intranets that cost large sums so I could certainly understand what René was talking about. One of major flaws of existing intranets, even when they work to find stuff, is the lack of social context. It is difficult to find anything about people.
Serena wanted to promote a greater connection between people. Facebook, which is both free and a great example of web 2.0, seemed to be the right answer. They established a private Facebook group for Serena employees and they built a few simple custom Facebook apps to better enable intranet functions. Now they provide links through Facebook to documents stored securely behind the firewall. Access is just as secure as any other method. Serena employees go to specific people to get relevant information. For example, René and his staff provide press clippings and the HR people provide links to benefits information. In each case you learn about the people providing the information through their Facebook profiles, and not simply the content, itself.
Serena also has public Facebook groups to connect with customers and the broader marketplace. René said that some of his customer conversations have now moved away from email. Clients such as Stewart Cohen at Arbitron and Rajiv Amar at Intuit connect with René and his colleagues through Facebook. René is also one of my Facebook friends and I have noticed that he is usually at the top of the recently updated profile list so I can easily see what he is currently doing.
Serena has found that Facebook has also helped them with recruiting. People send their resumes through Facebook and prospective employees relate their use of the same networking tool that they use in their personal lives. Employee morale has also increased, as well as employee retention, as the whole firm is better connected. A few years ago, many people thought that blogs and business did not go together. We have seen that perception change dramatically. I wonder if the same will be soon said for Facebook and other social networking tools. Thanks to Serena for proving us with an example.
by Joe McKendrick
November 27, 2007 at 12:46 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Community, Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing, Social Media, SocialText, User Revolution, Web 2.0
“In order to get maximum value from this ever-growing collection of ideas and information, in a real sense you have to un-manage it. It’s by un-managing it, by allowing everybody who touches it to add to the connections, to add their own links, ideas, reviews, bad ideas, good ideas, insights—that’s how the collection grows. Just as with the Web itself, it cannot scale sufficiently if it’s too centrally managed.”
-David Weinberger
David Weinberger, who I had the pleasure of meeting at FastForward’s San Diego confab earlier this year, and who’s work has graced these pages (Hylton provides a list here), recently discussed his latest book, Everything is Miscellaneous, with the editors at KnowledgeWorld.
David says we are entering a Miscellaneous Economy, enabled via technology, which is providing us with rich two-way knowledge and interaction. As he put it: “with the digital miscellaneous, we find all sorts of ways that the things are alike, all sorts of connections and relationships. We’re doing that together. We’re doing it over the course of time. The digital miscellaneous pile is getting richer and richer with connections, meanings, significant relationships.”
David says that the Miscellaneous Economy is evolving out of the Web of relationships that is developing as a result of social networking technology. “It can be as ordinary as a link,” he explained. “A person links one page to another because she sees some relationship between them. Tags are another expression of a relationship. The semantic Web does this also. All of these relationships are preserved and are available to help us find what we want. The miscellaneous becomes rich with potential, with multiple layers of meaning and a near infinite number of ways of organizing it.”
What’s the meaning to business? David provides three ways in which businesses can profit from the Miscellaneous Economy:
1) Businesses can let customers organize information: “Under the traditional way of organizing, which works very well for physical objects, the business decides what is the best way to organize and categorize its stuff, and what are the right paths through it. …What you think of as a survival backpack may be to a customer a good graduation gift or the perfect shape to carry her new video camera. For another customer, it may be reminiscent of the backpack he had when he was in the Boy Scouts. You enable your customers to find the information that they want far more efficiently if you allow them to participate in the categorizing and organizing of it. And especially if you allow them to do it together.”
2) Businesses can uncover previously unseen relationships: “By using tools that allow that information to be broken out of its assigned categories, you will discover relationships you didn’t know were there. You’re going to spur innovation, you’re going to discover efficiencies and you’re going to enable people across your organization to find other people who share their passions.”
3) Information mashups: “You’ll also get more use out of your information because your information makes more sense when it’s mashed up with other information. Not infrequently it happens that by allowing information over here that looks like it shouldn’t have anything to do with that other information over there, we discover what we never expected to discover.”
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